1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to generation of comfort noise by a headset that is associated with a VoIP-enabled device.
2. Background
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) enables the transfer of communications that include voice data over a packet-switched data network, such as the Internet. Devices that support VoIP communications may be referred to as VoIP-enabled devices. A VoIP-enabled device may be a dedicated VoIP telephone or personal digital assistant (PDA), for example, which is capable of initiating and receiving telephone calls without the use of a computer. In another example, the VoIP-enabled device may be a computer having software installed thereon that enables the computer to initiate and/or receive telephone calls. In yet another example, the VoIP-enabled device may be a mobile phone that uses a fourth generation (4G) or later cellular network, such as a Long Term Evolution (LTE) network.
A VoIP-enabled device may communicate with another VoIP-enabled device by receiving a communication that includes voice data over a network from the other VoIP-enabled device and/or by transmitting a communication that includes voice data over the network to the other VoIP-enabled device. Upon receiving such a communication, a VoIP-enabled device may process (e.g., decode) the communication to generate speech based on the voice data. VoIP-enabled devices traditionally generate comfort noise and insert that comfort noise into any periods of silence in the speech that the VoIP-enabled devices generate. Comfort noise is noise that is generated to simulate background noise in speech. For example, such comfort noise may serve as an indicator to a person who is using a VoIP-enabled device that a call in which the person is participating remains connected.
A VoIP-enabled device may be associated with a headset, so that a user of the headset may listen to speech using the headset rather than the VoIP-enabled device. For example, the VoIP-enabled device may wirelessly transmit a voice signal that represents the speech to the headset. However, transmission of a voice signal that includes comfort noise by the VoIP-enabled device and/or subsequent processing of the voice signal at the headset may consume substantial resources (e.g., power, bandwidth, etc.) of the VoIP-enabled device and/or the headset.